At least this time the developer weasels will have to fork it over -- the ones who are poised to wreck the central eastside industrial district and cash in with Wim Wimoweh, the chief realtor over at Portland State. But of course, since the city can't give these guys sneaky handouts fast enough, any extra charges are all for show, as they're all ultimately coming from you and me.

If you're connecting the dots at home, construction jobs in the Portland metro area are down 11% over the past year. What a time for the city to be piling fees on that industry. It seems sure to push any recovery in those numbers to the suburbs. Not that that's necessarily a bad thing. Go by streetcar!

Interesting that the urban dwellers/suburbia haters love to claim how much subsidy they don't require and how much the suburbs are subsidized...

But they never mention that it's the suburbs that are forced to make up for the lost revenue that pays for much of the property tax based services that these URA located properties don't pay taxes (or the taxes are diverted) on.

Nobody in the 'burbs pays a dime to make up for lost revenues that the UDAs or Urban Renewal Areas in Portland cause.

Those lost general funds to support city and county and school and various special distyrict (Port, ESDs) services come out of the pockets of real property owners in side PDX city limits, and nobody else, and certainly nobody in the 'burbs.

Those lost general funds to support city and county and school and various special district (Port, ESDs) services come out of the pockets of real property owners inside PDX city limits

Sorry, but who all pays for the Port of Portland? Not just Portland - the Port's district includes all three Metro counties.

TriMet? Covers more than just Portland.

The Multnomah ESD? Gresham pays for that too.

And certainly, "East Portland" is, by the urban dweller's definition, "suburbia". It wasn't even within Portland city limits until the 1980s when the city annexed everything out to Gresham, promised better city services...happily collected the tax payments, to fund downtown projects.

Actually Portland's 12,000 acres of urban renewal TIF real estate is now having over $6 Billion in assessed value/and all of it's taxes over decades, diverted aways from where it should be going including public education.

Every one of the now 117 UR districts in the State drain the State common school fund to back fill what is diverted by their TIFs.

Portland's portion of that loss to the common school fund is enormous.
And of course every school district in the State gets less because of every UR distrcit.

That means every Urban, suburb school helps pay for the Tram and every other Portland boondoggle.

Of course PPS helps pay for UR in every other city.

UR use of Tax Increment Financing is a hideous ponzi scheme that must be stopped now.

Before the municipalities and counties that are right now ignoring the state of our economy as they plot a big increase in this reckless misappropriation.

Schools, public safety and every other taxing jurisdiction must oppose it's use.

Actually, it isn't the developers that pay those SDC increases, it is, by and large, the property owners.

Think about it. Lets say a property is zoned for 100 condos or apartments and the market value of that land is $2 million. If a developer is able to bid $20,000 per unit allowed for his condo tower under current rules and the city increases an SDC by $5000 per unit, he is now only able to pay $15,000 per unit. Overnight the guy who has to move his hardware business or whatever lost 25% of the value of his property to the SDC.

Road Work

Miles run year to date: 45
At this date last year: 117
Total run in 2016: 155
In 2015: 271
In 2014: 401
In 2013: 257
In 2012: 129
In 2011: 113
In 2010: 125
In 2009: 67
In 2008: 28
In 2007: 113
In 2006: 100
In 2005: 149
In 2004: 204
In 2003: 269